Chapter Five

Five

S ebastian could not take his eyes off Prudence.

"Sebastian. Sebastian, dear, would you please pass the butter?"

Tricia's voice was no more than the nagging whine of a persistent mosquito. Sebastian handed her the gravy tureen. A table full of inquisitive eyes blinked at him. He jerked his attention back to Tricia and swapped gravy tureen for butter dish, chuckling feebly.

"Forgive me, darling. The long journey has addled my wits."

He would have to take more care, he thought. It would not do for anyone to notice his intense preoccupation with the prim creature dining on the other side of the table. He silently cursed Tricia's wretched sense of hospitality. She had invited not only the neighboring Squire Blake and his simpering daughter Devony, but the county sheriff, Sir Arlo Tugbert, to celebrate his arrival at Lindentree. If Tricia's niece dared to speak, the sheriff would have more to celebrate than an engagement before this interminable supper was done. Sebastian picked at his smoked herring and satisfied himself with studying Prudence beneath the sweeping veil of lashes he had always detested.

From Tricia's description of her unmarried niece, he had fully expected to meet a bucktoothed hag. A perplexed frown crinkled his brow. He could not look at her without having the enchanting vision of a lass soaked with rain and breathless with laughter superimposing itself over her now flawless composure. It was like watching a misty water-color run over the harsh but simple lines of a pencil drawing. The effect was jarring. Sebastian gripped the crystal stem of his wineglass without realizing it.

Her every gesture captivated him as he searched for some hint of that other girl, the girl who had haunted his dreams since that rainy night.

She ate with head bent, seemingly oblivious to the bright titter of conversation and tinkle of silver on crystal. She cut her herring into tiny bits before tucking each neat square between her delicate lips. She ate so slowly, Sebastian began to count each chew under his breath.

She paused between bites to push the heavy spectacles back up her slender nose. Her thick hair was caught in a tight chignon at the nape of her neck, and Sebastian felt unaccountably angry. What right did she have to go around looking like someone's maiden governess? He hungered to loosen her hair, to drive his hands through it and see if its softness was as compelling as its memory.

"Tell us about yourself, Lord Kerr," said the squire, jerking Sebastian's attention back to Tricia's guests. "To hear our Tricia tell of you, it seems you are angel and saint rolled into one."

Out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian saw Prudence stop chewing. He forced himself to hold Squire Blake's gaze and not glance at her. The squire was a heavy-jowled man who looked as if he had been stuffed into his starched cravat and exploded. A cauliflower wig sat slightly askew on his head. Rice powder clung to the deep creases around his eyes.

"Like most men," Sebastian said, managing to smile, "I fear I am more sinner than saint. You musn't let Tricia's admiration sway you."

Tricia patted his hand. "Don't be modest, you silly boy." She leaned forward, including the entire table in the charmed circle of her confidence. "Sebastian is a Highland laird. He has a sumptuous castle in the mountains which has been in the Kerr clan for centuries. It is simply the height of romance—soaring turrets, a moat, a drawbridge."

"And a dungeon, I hope," Sir Arlo said. "No home would be complete without one." His prominent Adam's apple bobbed as he laughed at his own joke.

Sebastian's smile waned. He possessed no fondness for sheriffs, nor for landed English gentry. He could not help but notice the proprietary way the tall young man had pulled out Prudence's chair for her, and the possessive glances he had been casting at the top of her head throughout dinner. Sebastian felt like stabbing him with his two-pronged fork.

Tricia pursed her lips in a pout. "I've been trying to talk Sebastian into honeymooning at the castle. Won't you all help me convince him?"

Sebastian covered her hand with his own. Had she always chattered so incessantly? He hadn't noticed it in the bright babble of London society. "Now, Tricia, I told you Dunkirk would be much too primitive for your delicate tastes. I've been abroad for years, and there are a slew of renovations needed at the castle. Perhaps later in our marriage."

She gazed at him in obvious adoration. "I shouldn't care as long as I was with you."

Prudence pushed her plate away as if she had suddenly lost her appetite. Here it comes, Sebastian thought. She was going to denounce him. He was a madman to have stayed once he saw her. He should have leaped back into his carriage and fled.

She lifted her head. The thick glass of her spectacles hid the lethal beauty of her eyes. "Sebastian?" she said coolly. "Is that not an unusual name for a Scotsman?"

Sebastian felt his jaw tighten of its own volition. "My mother was French. She had a fondness for Bach."

Prudence toyed with her glass. "It's fortunate Mozart was not her favored composer. You might have been christened Wolfgang."

A muscle in Sebastian's jaw twitched. A nervous bubble of laughter escaped from Sir Arlo.

Prudence pressed on. "And your father?"

"A Highland laird. Like myself."

A corner of her mouth curved upward. "Ah, a great man. You must have been very fond of him."

Damn the lass, Sebastian thought. He wanted to reach across the table and shake her until her icy demeanor shattered. "I was," he said softly.

"I couldn't help but notice your limp," she went on. "Were you injured recently?"

Sebastian had seen bulldogs with less tenacity.

Tricia rescued him with a sympathetic cluck. "I fear my Sebastian suffers from an old war injury."

Prudence's gaze did not waver from his face. "What war might that be?"

He could feel his smile stiffening to a grimace. "You wouldn't have heard of it. It was a Highland clan war."

She blinked innocently. "I thought they'd been outlawed since the Scottish rebellion of '46."

She'd pushed him far enough. Sebastian leaned forward, his smile wicked, his burr deepening. "'Tis no surprise you did not read of it in your newspapers. 'Twas a gruesome affair that all began when a careless lass could not learn to still her flapping tongue." His eyes sparkled. "After she was found strangled with her own hair ribbons on the moor—"

With a violent gasp, Devony Blake shoved herself away from the table. She collapsed in the brocaded chair in a quivering heap of ruffles and lace.

Tricia jumped up and trotted around the table. "Oh, dear. How very, very thoughtless of us. You know how Devony swoons at the merest mention of Scotland, and here we are going on and on about it."

Prudence went back to her meal, dismissing Sebastian's glare with infuriating calm.

Devony's father shoveled another forkful of herring into his mouth. "She'll be fine in a minute. Loosen that fichu, won't you, so she doesn't suffocate."

While Tricia loosened the offensive fichu, Sir Arlo knelt beside Devony's chair and fanned her with his napkin.

Squire Blake gestured with his fork, sending bits of herring flying. "You must forgive my daughter, Lord Kerr. She had an unfortunate encounter with one of your countrymen. Abducted and used by a shameless Scots highwayman, I fear. Never be the same."

Devony's long lashes fluttered.

Sir Arlo patted her wrist. "It was that cursed Kirkpatrick. I suppose his infamy has spread even up to the Highlands."

Sebastian lifted his glass to hide his mouth. "I've heard of him."

Sir Arlo gave an angry snort. "Damned impudent monster thinks he can go about robbing decent people and ravishing innocent young girls."

Sebastian would have hated to disillusion the righteous sheriff, but Devony Blake had been neither innocent nor ravished the night they had spent together. He was beginning to see where Prudence had formed her opinions about him. The thought did not give him comfort.

Determination strengthened Sir Arlo's weak chin. He looked almost handsome for an elusive moment. "I swear I'll have my noose around the bastard's neck before this summer is done."

Sebastian resisted the urge to loosen his cravat. If Prudence chose, the sheriff would have his noose around the bastard's neck before supper was done.

Sighing breathily, Devony sat up. Sebastian tried to remember why he had ever been attracted to her. Thank God he hadn't taken off his mask for that one.

"I am so mortified," she said. "But every time I think of Scotland, I remember that horrible night." She swayed, showing signs of swooning afresh. Her vacant blue eyes went misty. "That man. I shall never forget him. His brawny arms, his relentless hands, the heat of his mouth on mine—"

With a neat jerk of one elbow, Prudence overturned her wineglass. Claret cascaded across the pristine linen tablecloth and into Devony's lap.

Devony leaped up with a shriek, swoon forgotten. She snatched the napkin from Arlo and swabbed at the red stain spreading across her delicate pink organdy skirt. "Oh, no, my new gown! Must you always be such a clumsy cow, Prudence?"

Prudence murmured an apology and neatly speared another bite of herring. While everyone else attended to Devony's fitful hysterics, Sebastian lifted his glass to Prudence in a mocking toast.

Her spectacles reflected the light of the chandelier with twin candle flames, rendering her expression as inscrutable as if she were now the one masked. He did not like the effect.

He dared to address her directly. "Tell me, Miss Walker, how did you come to live with your aunt?"

As Prudence opened her mouth, Tricia looked up from dabbing at Devony's skirt and said, "Prudence came to live with me after my brother died. Livingston was an inventor. Much older than me, of course."

"Of course," Squire Blake seconded gallantly. "Tricia has always been the baby of this county." He cast a hopeful glance at his empty plate.

Tricia rose dutifully and rang for dessert, leaving Devony in the sheriff's capable hands.

Sebastian's long fingers tapped his glass. "An inventor. How interesting. What did your father dabble in?"

Prudence didn't even get her mouth open this time before Tricia trilled, "Silly things. Nothing of any importance. Muskets. Pistols. Gunpowder."

Sebastian ceased his tapping. The echo of fingernails against crystal rang in the silence.

"Before Papa died," Prudence said hastily, "he was working on a powerful fulminic acid to replace gunpowder."

"An interesting concept," Sir Arlo said. "It might have saved me a few hundred misfires from slow-burning powder."

She nodded. "Papa could have saved the King's Army a fortune in gunpowder as well if he had succeeded, but George wasn't interested. Had it been wig powder instead of gunpowder, I've no doubt the King would have financed any experiment Papa cared to undertake."

A slow, dangerous smile curved Sebastian's lips. "I prefer the claymore myself, but I've always been curious about a certain point. Tell me, Miss Walker, what did your father think of the effect of water on gunpowder?"

A tiny dimple appeared at one corner of Prudence's mouth. "He found it to have a dampening effect, my lord."

Sebastian leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Yes. I supposed he would."

"Prudence was her father's assistant," Sir Arlo said, almost proudly.

"Scandalous task for a young girl." Tricia dabbed her nose with a perfumed handkerchief at the memory. "Whenever I'd visit, there the poor little creature would be—her clothes reeking of sulfur, her face streaked with charcoal."

"Graphite," Prudence corrected her aunt gently.

"Oh, pooh!" Tricia said. "Enough talk of such silliness over supper. Livingston's ridiculous experiments got him nowhere but blown to kingdom come in front of the Royal Society and half of London. I've never been so mortified."

Squire Blake waved his fork. "He shouldn't have poured that hooker of brandy into the mercury. Such a waste of fine brandy!"

Tricia nodded. "All his hopes of obtaining an honorary peerage from the King came to naught. Why, all we could find to bury of him were his shoe buckles and wig! Knowing how addlepated he was, he probably wasn't even wearing them. It was sheer good fortune that he sent Prudence back to their lodgings for his spectacles or we'd have found nothing of her but her hairpins."

A sick feeling blossomed in the pit of Sebastian's stomach. "Fortunate indeed," he murmured.

He studied Prudence to see what effect Tricia's callous speech might have on her. The hue of her skin was so delicate, he would have judged further paling impossible. He was wrong.

She pushed herself back from the table. Even against the stark white of the tablecloth, her knuckles looked pinched and pale. "I seem to be taking a headache. If you'll be kind enough to excuse me from dessert, I shall retire to my room."

She didn't wait to hear Tricia's objections. She fled the dining room, nearly colliding with a plump maid bearing a silver tray of cherries doused in flaming brandy.

The maid steadied the tray, rolling her eyes as Prudence disappeared. "Good Lord, Lady Tricia, that girl'll be the death of us all one day."

Sebastian waited for Tricia to defend her niece and upbraid the servant for her familiarity.

Instead, Tricia's lips curved in a feline smile. "Come, Squire Blake, put out that fire, won't you? Cherries are your favorites. I only hope Sebastian likes them half so well."

Tricia's hand stroked his thigh beneath the shield of the tablecloth. Sebastian hardly noticed as his gaze drifted back to the half-eaten herring and empty dessert plate on the other side of the table.

He stood abruptly, spilling his napkin to the floor. "If you'll excuse me, dear, I must tend to my coachman's…" The rest of his excuse was lost in a mumble as he strode from the dining room, bumping into the plump maid hard enough to send her teetering.

The corridor was empty. Sebastian lengthened his strides, his cane never touching the floor. The sleek marble tiles of the entranceway seemed to stretch forever. At last he saw her, a slight figure, head bent, hand poised on the banister as she started up the stairs. The grace of a thief served Sebastian well. His hand closed over her wrist before she ever heard his footfalls.

She spun around on the step above him, her eyes dark and stricken behind the fragile glass. His hard grip softened. His thumb rubbed lightly over the tripping pulse in her wrist.

There was so much he longed to tell her, so much he needed to say. But at the same moment, they both became aware of Old Fish behind them, puttering around the potted orange tree with a watering can.

The brittle eloquence Sebastian had perfected in London failed him, leaving him as awkward and graceless as a schoolboy. "Your father, Miss Walker…I'm terribly sorry."

"It was a long time ago." Her hand clenched into a fist, but she did not pull away.

Sebastian wondered how much anger she hid beneath her cool veneer. He should warn her of the cost. He had bit back his own anger for years, rolling dutifully beneath every blow until he could feel nothing at all. He longed to pull her head down to his shoulder and let the bitterness dimming her eyes spill into the healing balm of tears.

Old Fish stooped over the plant, his back to them. Sebastian couldn't stop himself. He reached up and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Her skin was satin cream, just as he remembered. "Some wounds take longer to heal than others."

She flinched as if he had struck her. Her gaze flicked downward to his cane. "Like your old war wound?"

His hand fell, and she turned away in a crisp swish of poplin. "You'd best get back to your guests, my lord. Your fiancée is waiting for you."

As she climbed the steps, her back and shoulders perfectly straight, Sebastian blew out a slow breath of frustration. He swung away from the stairs and met Old Fish's cold gaze. The butler's thin nostrils flared at the merest scent of scandal.

Before he could protest, Sebastian took the tin pot out of his hand and flipped it upside down. Nothing came out. He shook it before handing it back. "The tree might grow quicker, my good man, if you'd take the trouble of putting water in the pot."

Smiling angelically, Sebastian tucked his cane under his arm and marched back to the dining room.

Prudence slammed the door to her bedchamber shut, twisted her key with trembling fingers, and braced her back against the door. Her chest heaved as if she had climbed a steep mountain instead of a staircase. She took several long, shuddering breaths, fighting the feeling that she was being pursued. The silence that surrounded her was broken by a bright burst of Tricia's laughter floating up the stairs. It was not her aunt's flippant description of her papa's death that had ignited Prudence's hunger for escape. It was the frank sympathy in Sebastian Kerr's eyes.

Since Sebastian's arrival, Prudence had somehow tolerated the walk from the drive to the house with Tricia clinging to his arm like a limpet. She had suffered through the awkwardness of tea, although the buttercrumb tarts crumbled to sawdust in her mouth each time he looked at her. She had endured supper and the maddening swing of his expression from perplexed curiosity to something bordering on hostility.

But when he'd looked at her as if he ached to reach out and enfold her hand in his, her pretense of dignity had snapped. She pressed a hand to her burning cheek. She had never dreamed he would be so bold and foolish as to follow her, to say he was sorry about her papa, to touch her face…

Violently, she stripped off her gown, then tore at the stays of her corset, bending them beyond repair. She was in no mood to summon a maid to undress her as if she were an invisible doll.

Indignation flooded her. Sebastian Kerr had a surfeit of arrogance to attend one of her aunt's dinner parties in such a bizarre manner of dress! He had worn no wig. The powder that had burnished his tawny hair was light enough to be more of an insult than if he wore none at all.

She threw her gown in the armoire and jerked out a cotton night rail. She pulled it over her head backward, lost the armholes, and spent the next few seconds trying to extricate her head, muttering all the while. Then her head popped out and her hair came tumbling down, scattering hairpins across the faded rug.

Sebastian's unfashionable tan had made Sir Arlo, with his powdered visage, look like a day-old corpse. His charcoal knee-breeches had matched exactly the color of his thick lashes, and had clung to his thighs in a most unseemly manner. His cutaway frock coat had been devoid of all lace but for a narrow band around the cuffs. And most shocking of all had been his unstarched cravat. Its soft, loose folds had framed beautifully the piquant play of emotions across his face.

Prudence plucked the rest of the pins from her hair and dragged a gilt brush through the heavy mass. The brush caught in a tangle. She tugged, taking a perverse satisfaction in the pain. She started to braid her hair, then stopped. What difference did it make? There was no one to see her in the privacy of her simple chamber. She slammed a nightcap on her head with enough force to cover her eyes.

A hairpin jabbed her heel as she padded blindly to the bed. She crawled beneath the counterpane, pillowed her head on folded arms, and glared up at the tent-bed's canopy. Tricia had a massive mahogany bedstead with fluted posts and embroidered tester. Prudence's small bed was crafted of light iron and shrouded with white muslin. Polished brass finials topped the bedposts.

As she rolled to her side and pounded her bolster into submission, she had the discomfiting sensation that she was eleven years old again and struggling to understand why Papa must send every extra tuppence to his "poor orphaned little sister."

"Be patient, my Prudence," he would say. "All it will take is one word from the king and your future will be secure. Our day will soon arrive." Prudence was still waiting.

While she and her papa had lived in rustic comfort in a two-room apartment in London, Tricia had luxuriated in the Northumberland countryside, collecting and discarding Hepplewhite pier-tables and fawning beaux with equal panache. Prudence had tried not to resent her lovely aunt.

To Prudence, Tricia's infrequent calls to their cluttered lodgings had been like the earthly visitations of a satin-swathed fairy. Tricia would pat her cheek, her fingers cool beneath their net gloving. An irresistible sympathy would warm her amber eyes as she pressed a perfumed kerchief to her dainty nose. For a brief moment, basking in the glow of Tricia's attention, Prudence would find it not so terrible to be smart and skinny and plain.

The sympathy in Sebastian's touch told her otherwise. Prudence flung herself onto her stomach. Sympathy was too kind a word. Perhaps someday she would learn to separate it from pity.

Coach wheels rattled on the cobblestones of the drive. Tricia's lilting farewell drifted up through Prudence's open window. Devony Blake, she thought, was now free to go home and dream of her mystery bandit with the relentless hands and heated lips, while Tricia was left to do more than dream with a man who was a greater mystery than she knew.

Prudence sighed, wishing her kitten was snuggled beside her. He was probably in the herb garden, chasing moonbeams and dreaming of bewhiskered fairies. Why should he be at her side when she needed him? What could she expect of a beast with a treacherous name like Sebastian? Especially a male beast.

A board creaked on the stairs. She pulled the counterpane over her head. A hushed whisper was followed by a throaty giggle, then the giggle was muffled abruptly in a manner Prudence did not choose to explore. A door closed. The house fell silent.

Prudence lay still until her legs grew stiff and she wearied of breathing the air beneath the stifling confines of the covers. How dare the scoundrel pity her? she thought, throwing back the counterpane.

She rose to pace the room. Moonlight slanted like prison bars across the rug. A brisk night breeze stirred the ruffled curtains. Her restlessness grew until it bordered on wildness. She picked up a book and tossed it down, then strode to the ceramic water pitcher.

It was empty.

It was just like the maids to forget to fill it, she thought. No doubt Tricia's pitcher was brimming over with cold water. Old Fish had probably shaved the ice himself for her ladyship's pleasure.

Prudence's throat suddenly felt as parched as if she'd trekked across the Sahara without benefit of a camel. She tightened her jaw, telling herself she would not remain a prisoner in her bedroom for the rest of her life, simply because her aunt had the insensitivity to marry a highwayman.

She donned a wrapper and stuck her head out the door to peer both ways. The long corridor was empty. A single candle in a glass sconce cast a gentle glow on the polished cedar floor. Old Fish always kept a candle burning for his mistress. Tricia hated the dark.

Prudence crept into the hall, her bravado dissipating along with her savage temper. The days when she would have gone to her aunt's chamber for a drink were done. Heaven knows what sordid sight might greet her there.

She sank down at the top of the stairs and peered through a lyre-shaped baluster. Her hands curled around the cool wrought-iron. Moonlight and shadows dappled the entranceway below. A candle left guttering in the drawing room cast a shallow pool of light across the marble tile. Prudence listened, but heard only the odd creaks and groans of any house abandoned to the stillness of night.

She glided down the stairs. The mahogany banister felt clammy beneath her palm.

As she stepped off the last stair and turned toward the mundane comfort of the kitchens, a band of relentless muscle shot around her waist and jerked her against an unyielding male chest. A firm hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her would-be scream to silence.